Metropolitan Police to 'reflect diversity' by recruiting only from London

In a bid to reflect London's diversity, the Metropolitan Police will now only recruit people who live in the capital city. The force will also consider taking new recruits with minor criminal convictions, local media reports.

Beginning in August, the Met will only consider constables who
have lived in Greater London for at least three of the past six
years. The policy has the full backing of London Mayor Boris
Johnson and Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe.

“With London’s population increasing and becoming even more
diverse it is essential that our workforce is able to maintain
the trust and confidence of London’s communities,” said Sir
Bernard.

The move follows plans announced in March to fast-track external
recruits into senior policing roles in order to improve diversity
in the force.

“Recent recruitment rounds have attracted a more diverse pool
of applicants, but by focusing exclusively on Londoners from now
on, we can achieve our goals more quickly,” said Johnson, as
quoted by the Press Association news agency.

Stephen Greenhalgh, the deputy mayor for policing and crime who
has daily oversight of the Met, said the focus of any new rounds
of recruitment would be on “competence” – including
cultural competence – and not on “color” or quotas.

He also said that the plan is aimed at reversing the number of
officers commuting into London from the home counties.

“We have got to recognize that having a majority of your
workforce that travel in very large distances to come to work, do
not even live or have never resided for any period of time in the
city, cannot be healthy," he said.

“If you come in and you don’t know anybody, it’s very hard to
be an effective officer,” he added.

The Met has faced criticism for being too white, with just 11
percent of Met officers from an ethnic minority – compared to
four in ten Londoners.

Of recent intakes, 60 percent of new officers are from outside
London, and just 10 percent are from ethnic minorities. In
contrast, of the new recruits from London, 30 percent are from
ethnic minorities.

Some police chiefs fear that the legitimacy of policing in the
capital is being undermined by the widening race gap.

In fact, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe considered introducing positive
discrimination, where one ethnic minority officer would be
recruited for every new white officer. However, this would have a
required a change in the law, and the plan was not welcomed by
the Home Office.

The Met is still held in poor regard by black Londoners in the
wake of the 1999 Macpherson report into Met prejudice, which
allegedly let the racist murderers of Stephen Lawrence escape
justice. There is also a lack of trust in the police from the
black community as a result of the 2011 London riots, which were
sparked by the unnecessary shooting and killing of Mark Duggan in
Tottenham, north London.

The Met has also announced it is relaxing strict rules on
recruitment to allow people to join who have been convicted of
minor criminal offenses. The Met says its current policy is
“very restrictive,” and that its needs a “more
balanced and nuanced view.”

“Of course, an armed robber could not be a police officer nor
could a murderer but we are looking at each case. It is about the
severity of that case and the length of time that has elapsed
since that case,” said Met HR director Robin Wilkinson.